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| Aeneas leaving Dido |
Dido in Roman legend, Queen of Carthage and a major character in Virgil'
Aeneid. The daughter of King Belus of Tyre, she was also called Elissa. When her brother Pygmalion killed her husband, Dido left Tyre and fled to Libya, on the coast of Africa. The Libyan king, Iarbas, offered to sell her as much land as an oxhide would cover. Dido cleverly cut the hide into strips and, laying them end to end, marked off the boundary of a city. The city became Carthage, and Dido ruled as its queen.
The famous love story of Dido and the Trojan prince Aeneas is told by Virgil in the
Aeneid. In the story, Aeneas is shipwrecked off the coast of Libya on his way to Italy. He is brought to Carthage, where Dido receives him lavishly and falls in love with him. When Aeneas leaves her to continue his journey, Dido commits suicide by throwing herself on a funeral pyre.
